It doesn't really matter whether I gauge from the 90-degree heat out the door to my right or the calendar to my left that the season officially begins tomorrow. It's obvious that summer is upon us in San Diego.
For surfers, that's a blessing and a curse.
The heat, the suntans, the combined scent of charcoal and Coppertone, the frivolous beach days, the wetsuit-less surf sessions, the hot mornings, the long afternoons, the warm nights, the quiet thrill of gauging evening winds through open windows – it's all there, and it's all meaningful.
But for all of its charm, there is summer's other face, and its other realities – the traffic, the crowds, the interminable search for parking, the crowds, the swelter, the crowds and, as any surfer knows – the wait. Also, it gets crowded.
It's one of surfing's greatest ironies that so many view the season most associated with the sport's image as one of the worst times of the year to be a surfer – at least in California, and San Diego.
In the winter, at least a few big swells roar down from the unholy northwest corner of the Pacific – generating in Japan and Alaska and steamrolling down the coast of the U.S. mainland. But in the summer, southern hemisphere swells and hurricane swells rarely arrive with the desired force – at least not often, at least not right here – typically spinning off to die a quiet death in the middle of the Pacific, leaving us with a few soft waves and an unquenched thirst.
It's this fact that will have any surfer worth his wetsuit telling you the seemingly counterintuitive truth that a 6 a.m. session in 56-degree water in the middle of January is more inviting than your typical mid-summer noontime go-out. Sure, they both have their charms, and both serve their purposes (and anybody who can't see the joy in riding a longboard in trunks is probably missing the point), but for sheer thrills, nine out of 10 surfers will take the frosty winter session.
But maybe it's time that surfers rethink their position, and stop being so inherently grumpy. Though it's true that a chat among surfers mid-summer is bound to garner a few “it's a beautiful day” comments, they'll be outweighed 2-1 by comments of the “too many kooks in the summer” variety. Truth be told, summer isn't just the favorite season of clueless hordes flocking to the beaches (even if it were, it really shouldn't bend surfers out of shape the way it does), it's also our most cultural season – a fact that we'd do well to consider as we stare down another long, hot one.
Summer, more than any other season, offers a chance at the complete surf life. Think long days on the beach peppered with three or four surf sessions, leisurely swims, bodysurfing, paddleboarding, free-diving, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, camping. It's all there.
For surf fans, there are contests in and around San Diego nearly everywhere you look, not to mention that after dark, there's more action than any other time of year, with a surf movie premiere nearly every week (regular favorites are the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art and the La Paloma Theater in Encinitas); and, as surfing gets more literate, events such as book signings, readings, and lectures are becoming more and more frequent. (Of course, if that's too highbrow for you, you could probably sneak your way into a lifeguard party.)
The point is that summer offers a chance to get back to the simpler pleasures in surfing. The winter is cold and it's esoteric and it's hardcore and it requires a certain degree of bravado – that's good. But surfing is not all riding big waves and pulling into big barrels. There's something basic and inherently great about paddling out on a hot day, easing in to a soft wave, trimming through a gutless section and repeating the process for hours on end, emerging sunburned and bleary eyed.
Summer starts tomorrow, but if you ask me it started a few weeks ago. In the next few months this column will be filled with all sorts of surf happenings from in and around San Diego. Before we get to that, though, I thought we should resolve ourselves – surfers and not – to make it a good one.
Brad Melekian can be reached bye-mailing him at
sports@uniontrib.com
